Page 3 of Mahogany 2
That night, he asked for my number. Wanted my name too. Tried to get personal but I didn’t go for it. Told him I kept the club, at the club. Had to. My life as Mahogany was already hectic enough. Imagine me actually having a real affair? One that didn’t exist only when I was at Pandora’s. Hell, I could barely handle that life. Things would have gotten really messy, and Duke probably would have found out about my dirty little secret a long time ago. Anyway, Ju respected it. Didn’t press too hard, and after chilling with me for a few, ended his night with someone else.
“Nice to meet you too, Judah,” I said with a light smile.
He didn’t hold on to my hand for too long. Didn’t let his gaze linger. Didn’t do his infamous wink… none of that. Just moved along, speaking to Tamia, while I shook hands with the rest of the team.
Speaking of… they were fucking beautiful. The whole team. They had this…thingabout them. Individually. They stood out in their own way. But one thing they had in common was that thing good looking black men have—swag. They were doused in various shades of brown, dressed in tailored designer suits,with an array of beard types with bright, unique smiles and firm handshakes.
After offering Crescent and the team refreshments they declined, we made it to the elevator. Crescent’s eyes never left me. For a brief moment, I wondered if he remembered me like I remembered him. Of course he didn’t. Couldn’t have. I had on a mask—he didn’t. Even with a mask, I might’ve remembered him because it was the feeling that stood out to me. I wondered if I was a feeling for him too. Probably not. Doubted it. If I was, I doubt he would have left the way he did. If the encounter for him was as intense as it was for me, he wouldn’t have left. Not without a name and number he wouldn’t have. Did I feel a little slighted? Silly? Stupid? Yes… I felt all of those things. Pitiful even. For five years I thought about him, and he probably didn’t think about me once.
Anyway, instead of standing there stuck in my head, feeling sorry for myself, I participated in the light small talk he was trying to create to fill the silence.
“I see you’ve been in business for quite a while. You ever had six big black niggas show up on your doorstep? Or is this the first time?” He boldly asked, with a light grin. I was caught off guard but shit… should I have been? This was the same man who’d embraced me at a bar in a sex club. Still, that was then. We were getting ready to start abusinessmeeting. Something told me he was himself, despite where he was at. He was dressed professionally in a sharp ass suit and tie but there was this underlying ‘hoodism’ there. All of them had it. I could tell off rip, not just from the comment he’d made, that they got it out of the mud.
I giggled. “No,” I paused and shook my head. “Never.”
I’d never had ‘six big black niggas’ show up on my doorstep, but I’d definitely worked with a couple of hood niggas. The localrappers I did business with, a few obvious drug dealers… you know. But they never showed up like this. Deep, dressed in suits.
“It’s a first for everything, huh?” Judah said, probably referencing the first time I squirted on his face, wetting his thick beard up.
With a squint, I shifted my gaze from Crescent to Judah. “Absolutely.”
Detroit and societies like the one at Pandora’s were small. However, I’d never run into anybody I’d slept with at the club, outside of it. Not to my knowledge at least. Never like this. It was… pretty fucking ironic. To me, this was God’s way of showing me He had a lot of fucking humor. Giving me what I wanted with a stipulation in front of it. Not only a stipulation but other messy shit attached to it too. What the fuck was Judah doing here? It was clear, how Crescent had gained access to the club. Never in a million years would I have expected the two of them to be linked. The man I wanted and the man who’d popped my Pandora’s cherry. Again… God and his humor. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was frustrating. Today, it was both.
“Don’t worry—you’re in good company,” Crescent said, leaning against the wall of the elevator, with his eyes on his phone.
And as if I had no control over myself, my eyes locked on him. Tami nudged me in the side, and I looked away, shaking my head.
Whispering, she said, “Everything is okay.”
She thought I was nervous about the meeting. Good. I didn’t want anybody to know that I was damn near drooling, in utter disbelief by who I was sharing an elevator with.
I hated this. Hated it so much. The subtle tug in his direction. A light beckoning for me to put my attention on him. The way heat radiated down my spine to my lower back where it sat for a moment before spreading over my entire body. Tingles, sittingin my fingertips where our hands once met. The desire… it was potent. So much so that my fucking mouth salivated.
I swallowed and crossed my arms at the wrists, so embarrassed that I could fucking throw up. I was disgusted with myself. With the desperation. The longing. Hated whatshedid to me. Me. The one who met him. The one who felt what she felt. Look at what she created. Look at what she did. I… I couldn’t escape the feeling of wanting him closer. Couldn’t stop thinking about what his hands on my waist felt like back then. Fuck.
Regardless of how much I wanted him, I couldn’t do anything with Crescent. Rule numero uno was that business couldn’t be mixed with pleasure. I’d worked with a fair share of very attractive, flirtatious men that I would have loved to ride until his balls were drained dry. But I kept Mahogany the adulterous slut tucked anytime I was in a business setting. But… I had to bend the rules a little… didn’t I? FortheeArmani suit, there should be an exception, right? It’d been too long. I’d spent too many nights riding my husband’s dick, thinking about him. I couldn’t just let something silly like workplace morals get in the way of that… right? Shit.Wrong. The risk was too big. With a contract of this size, the only position I needed to be in was as CEO of Couture, not on my back, on top, or ass up.
The elevator doors opened, reaching the top floor and the guys stepped aside to let me and Tamia out first. I felt their eyes on my phat ass as I did my little sashay off the elevator. Not too much, enough to exude just enough sex appeal. My hips moved like a smooth symphony—never one to shy away from eyes on my ass. I welcomed it, even. It gave me chills knowing that Armani suit had somehow found his way back into my web and had his eyes on me. Didn’t matter how he’d gotten there. Didn’t matter that I couldn’t pounce on him the way I’d dreamt of neither. The only thing I cared about was that he was in myweb at all. And this time, I was going to keep him in it. Even if that did mean through business.
Judah probably thought the sway in my hips was for him. I needed to chill. The last thing I needed was for him to think I enjoyed him being here, because I didn’t. Running my hand through my hair, I relaxed my stride a little and shook my head.
By the middleof the meeting, my nerves were calmed, and I was all in, in business mode. Yeah, it took a little overthinking but eventually, I got it together. Stopped thinking about the size of his dick and the size of that hefty, lengthy six project contract, instead.
Crescent wasn’t nearly as intimidating as he was upon meeting him. However, his eye contact? Daunting. Striking. Right up in your face. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he kept direct eye contact as a form of respect for the person he was interacting with because he did it with everyone else too. Which told me that whatever I felt between the two of us was simply just his lore. I didn’t want to feed the delusion anymore. Didn’t want to think there was some type of magical chemistry between us. Had done that long enough.
After a while, the meeting didn’t feel like a meeting anymore. Much like people swapping industry, success, and struggle stories. We had so much chemistry. A ton of it. As if we had been friends for a while. All of us. Not just Crescent and I. Tamia and the rest of the team got along very well too. Judah was on his best behavior. Didn’t make any more slick comments, just laughed, and participated in the conversations like everyone else.
My phone buzzed again, for what felt like the sixth time, and I turned it over to check it. Duke. Again. He’d called me every single one of those six times, and it was driving me nuts. Not only had he been calling but texting too, asking how much longer it would be. Sending lengthy messages about how much he loved me and shit like that. It was ridiculous. If he loved me like he said he did, he would’ve let me have my meeting in peace. He would have waited for me at the house. It was so bad that I was concerned about him coming up. But I knew he wasn’tthatcrazy.
With a sigh, I held the power button on my phone down and shut it off. When I looked up, my eyes caught Judah’s. He gave me a subtle nod, and I gave him a soft smile in return before turning my attention back to Crescent.
God it was weird. But so far, the meeting had been going exceptionally well. However, we were about thirty minutes into the meeting, and the deal hadn’t been confirmed. Honestly though, I didn’t need confirmation to know that Couture had snagged thee top investment firm in the state. The fact that it was black owned and operated was the cherry on top.
“So,” Crescent said with a smile. “You ready to talk numbers?”
With raised brows, I crossed one leg over the other, pivoting my body to face him. “I’m always ready to talk numbers.”
“Good. I’m very impressed by what you have going on here. Skylight Industries would be honored to partner with you and Couture,” He paused. “However…” Sliding his portfolio in front of me, he pointed. “This one? This project here? I’d like to work with you personally on it. Just this one. The others can be divided across your team however you see fit.”
